$2.7B fine just the start?

Photo: The Canadian Press

Google's parent company Alphabet can easily afford the $2.7 billion write-down it's taking to cover a big antitrust fine in Europe. But it might find it harder to shrug off the rest of the European regulatory assault that's headed its way.

In June, a European Commission ruling slapped down Google for abusing its market dominance in search by unfairly directing visitors to its comparison shopping service, Google Shopping, to the detriment of its rivals. The regulators not only imposed a huge fine, they also insisted that Google change the way it provides search results in Europe.

Alphabet is still mulling an appeal of that ruling, which could take years to get through the European Court of Justice. And that case is only the first of several such investigations that have embroiled Google across the Atlantic, a situation that raises uncertainty about its ability to operate freely on the continent going forward.

After a seven-year antitrust probe, the European Commission concluded that Google stifles the ability of rivals like Yelp to compete. That's a different standard than in the U.S., where regulators tend to step in only when consumer prices go up due to monopolistic power.

It's unclear how constraints on its behaviour could affect it, but 33 per cent of Alphabet's revenue — roughly $8.5 billion in the latest quarter — came from the region it calls Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Beyond the fine, Alphabet faces a penalty of up to 5 per cent of its average daily turnover if it doesn't give equal treatment to rival comparison shopping services in Europe by late September. It's up to Google to figure out how to do so.